So, this is the house that belongs to my ambulatory internal medicine attending, Dr. Hawatmeh.  It is huge… HUGE!  It’s a brand new house in a brand new subdivision to the northwest of St. Louis.  He’s lived there for about a year, and he’s still working on some finishing touches, but as you can see it is gorgeous, and huge.  And, I never thought I would say this, but it is actually a bit too big for my tastes.  But, he does have 4 teenage daughters, so maybe that fills it out a bit. 🙂  The pool is in the backyard, and even though you can’t really see it too well, there’s a big waterfall and pond way at the end of the property (past the end of the pool).

Yesterday evening my mom and I went to see the Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis’ production of "The Tempest" in Forest Park.  It was such a great way to spend the afternoon and evening…  We got there early (around 4:00pm) and claimed a nice patch of ground for our blanket right up near the stage.  We did some crosswords and watched the clouds, read the program and wandered the gounds…  Around 6:30m the "Green Show" started.  There were minstrels, jugglers, aerial acts, a shorter/easier to understand production of the play ("Tempest in a Flash") to give people an idea of the plot – many things to keep us entertained.  At 8:00pm the show started and, wow, was it cool.  The stage (see below) was very well crafted and fit right in with the surroundings.  The acting was great, and thanks to "Tempest in a Flash" I could really follow what was going on the whole time.  We had a nice picnic dinner of sandwiches, fruit and veggies, and cheese and crackers.

Today was totally packed and so much fun.  My mom and I played Whoonu and Hoopla (games from the creators of Cranium) and then set out for City Museum.  We had such a great time there – playing in MonstroCity, watching the Everyday Circus, exploring the Enchanted Caves, and (of course) sliding down the numerous slides!

There was a snowflake-making table in Art City in the City Museum and there were all sorts of animal designs – they even had a koala!!!  I made the koala one and had it laminated so it wouldn’t fall apart.  It was awesome – the coolest art project I have ever done. 🙂

After the City Museum, we went and had manicures (three cheers for no more hangnails!) and went grocery shopping for our picnic at the park tomorrow.  Then we stopped at the quintessential St. Louis gathering spot, Ted Drewes, for some frozen custard treats on the way home.

Today was a shopping day. 🙂  I gave my mom a Garden Ridge gift card for Mother’s Day, so we went out today to spend it.  Then we wandered around the rest of the shops out in Fenton and had lunch at Red Robin.

After that we headed back into St. Louis and saw Star Wars III at the Moolah (that’s where I took the picture below).

Once I was done with clinic and lectures for the day, my mom and I went out to Golf Headquarters to try our hand at the driving range.  Even though I have only had a few short golf lessons, I retained enough to be able to teach my mom how to hit the ball fairly well.  We had a great time (even if it did start to rain a little).

My mom and I walked up to the neighborhood art gallery yesterday evening for a show….

We looked at the artwork and met Jeff Miller, the owner of the gallery.  He was an interesting person. 🙂  The whole atmosphere was very laid back and friendly and I enjoyed myself.  I hope he continues to have shows frequently, it’s a nice way to spend some time.

He had an easel set up outside for a "community art project" so my mom and I each added our little bits to it:

My mom’s corner:

My weird (and kind of scary looking) doodle:

You can barely see him in these camera-phone pictures, but it’s as close as I could get without scaring him off.  Cute little bunny. 🙂  I saw him while I was walking home from Starbucks today.  One of his hopper legs was injured and withered up, but that didn’t seem to slow him down any.  I like that we have bunnies living in our neighborhood. I like that when I get up early to leave for the hospital I sometimes see them in our yard.  And when we move back home in a year there are bunnies waiting for me there too. 🙂

This is "MonstroCity" at the City Museum here in St. Louis.  It is a huge suspended maze of random architecture that you can walk, crawl, climb, and slide your way through.  It was definitely built with adults in mind, because all but a very few little parts of it are nicely sized for adult adventurers.  As you can (kind of) see, there is a firetruck, a big crane, and two smaller airplanes all built in.  It is amazingly awesome and fun to play in!  If any of you come to visit here in St. Louis, make sure this is a part of your trip!  Oh, and bonus for those of you who would prefer to explore such an attraction with minimal children around, the City Museum is open until 1am on Friday and Saturday nights, and there’s a little bar/cafe on the ground floor that opens in the evenings as well.

This church has also had X-box tournaments